Just One Look Forum Archives

I recently read a conversation between a zen teacher and someone where she said although she feels 'free' (enlightened or whatever) in life, after many years of depression and an attempted suicide, she believes that if she was to stop practising 'compassion' and meditation, all of her self destruction would return because of the fact there is so much suffering and shit going on in the world.

This got me thinking; could this be possible for someone who has done the looking? Maybe this question has already been answered before on this forum.... Of course, this is a problem for my mind to worry about but interesting none the less.

Look at yourself and find out the results... The only thing that will happen, as far as mr. sherman said and from my own life is: there's no separation between yourself and life anymore. Not sure about the self-destructiveness but it is probably dealt with during the recovery, which may be years... I think john said 'you just won't notice it anymore'. That's how it's been for me. I hope that helps.

I feel the effects are irrevocable with me in my life. I still get mildly depressed, as I am now, but less and less. Anxiety is virtually gone. I'm not making an effort to maintain this state with meditation or anything different than before......probably doing a lot less to ward off the dark forces. It feels permanent between the natural ups and downs of life.

Yes jackx it seems just like that for me too. Since the medicine to cure the fear of life disease is the truth it makes sense if its effects are irrevocable. Once something has been seen life can only go on from there. Maybe a blunt analogy but once you've seen that 2+2 is 4 it can't be unlearned again even if addition is much more complicated than you. So to me seems like a one way ticket no matter what you do.

Recovery is prompting me to 'be with' my negative reactions instead of 'running with' them. This is a most interesting development and one that is definitely giving me more freedom. The slow and steady way that recovery does its thing has me convinced I'm on a one-way trip to freedom.

Yes Bradley, I feel that way too. I cannot run from negative reactions anymore. I want to tell the world to stop resisting... Once seen, they are merely thoughts! And I am aware that I am not my thoughts! But they come, and they come, and I say OK, let's do this. It requires a certain amount of time, but the time it actually saves is amazing! I still love old memories of myself where I find that self. Like meeting old friends!

I'm not there yet, by any means but there is now a very rough edge to would be internal responses that was never noticed before. I can now notice this edge and more and more the noticing is the end of it. Like right now I really want to pig out on something unhealthy but at the same time I can notice the urge as something almost separate, some driven habitual response.